


Nix and Nathan's Big Birthday Bash

by Necro (Charlie_M)



Series: The Disaster Twins [2]
Category: Mortal Kombat (Video Games), Mortal Kombat - All Media Types
Genre: AU to Blind Vengeance, Birthday Party, Crack, Disaster Twins, Family Dynamics, Fluff and Humor, No Angst, No abuse, Quan Chi is tired, aggressive use of parentheses, cryptid children, indestructible children, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23635741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie_M/pseuds/Necro
Summary: Nix makes an observation at breakfast one day and Quan Chi lives with consequences.
Series: The Disaster Twins [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701553
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Nix and Nathan's Big Birthday Bash

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really having fun with these "what if Quan Chi wasn't a POS" fics. Maybe that's what I should have named the series.

He’s had the twins for about two years when they make an observation at breakfast one morning. See, the problem with a pair of twins, specifically this pair of twins— the Disaster Twins— is that they talk to each other. Alone they are mostly just strange and disconcerting. Together, however, is when they make feedback loops of energy and chatter that result in destruction, mayhem, and general despair.

“Hey, Nate,” Nix says, because she tends to think slightly more than her brother, which is always where the trouble begins. “How long do you think we’ve been living with Uncle?”

She says this as if Quan Chi is not sitting right next to her and across from her brother (a seating arrangement that he has determined, through trial and error, results in the least amount of airborne food and stab wounds) within easy asking distance. He has only now started to get used to this. He is convinced that they each have a foot perpetually planted in a liminal space only known to them, and therefore do not realize when he is present half the time.

“I dunno,” Nathan rambles, “a while.”

“More than a year, though, right?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Her eyes glow naturally— an effect that puts most people off before she ever opens her mouth— but there’s a telltale flicker in them. “Then it’s our birthday.”

What she means, Quan Chi knows, is that they’ve undoubtedly missed at least one. He counts his blessings that children are so terrible with time that they don’t realize they’ve more likely missed two.

Still, that does not spare him from Nathan’s hands slamming down on the table in realization. Quan Chi will not glare at his ten-year-old niece. He is a rational adult who chose to adopt a pair of twins. It is not her fault that she is aware of the passage of time at inopportune moments. Except he’s pretty sure it is.

(“Time is fake,” Nix says at Quan Chi’s elbow one day. Her voice is bright and chipper, as it so often is.

“Indeed it is, child,” he answers absently, attempting to finish some paperwork. He doesn’t notice, for a moment, that his vision is filling with static.

“The world is a construct of the mind. How do you know you’re alive?”

He raises his eyes from his work. “Phoenix, dear, where’s your brother?”

“I’ll go find him!”

“Yes, do that, please.”)

Yes, he’s pretty sure that she chooses to have these moments on purpose, though seriously doubts there’s any malicious intent behind it. More she likes to say things and see what happens because she and her brother feed off chaos like tiny vampires.

“We have to have a party!” Nathan says.

“You do not,” Quan Chi interjects, before this can escalate further.

Objectively, he knows that children have birthdays. They even attended Princess Kitana’s a month ago. He’s just never considered that  _ he _ would have to host one— or two, in this case.

“But we  _ do _ ,” Nix insists, staring at him with very large eyes. “If we don’t, time will get confused.”

He doesn’t ask what that means. He knows he doesn’t want the answer.

“What does one do for birthdays?” he sighs.

“A party!” they say in unison.

Of course. Quan Chi takes a long sip of his wine— perhaps he should just get the bottle now— before his next question.

“What kind of party?”

“Let’s explore the deep ocean for my previous body!” Nathan exclaims. Shang Tsung, who is just walking into the dining room, turns and leaves.

“I want an ice cream cake,” Nix adds.

“The beach, then,” Quan Chi splits the difference. 

Nix makes a noise of agreement and reaches absently for his wine. He’s so distracted by stopping her from dumping it all over her face, that he misses Nathan sticking his whole hand into a roasted animal to extract a bone that doesn’t even belong to said animal.

Party planning takes a week. Shang Tsung, unexpectedly, takes the lead on this project because it’s “unseemly for them to have anything less than the best” but really it just gives him better credit with the children.

Quan Chi is more than happy to be free of the responsibility, as it is the worst week of sleep he’s gotten in the two years he’s had them.

(He wakes in the middle of the night to weight on his chest. This isn’t as alarming as it was the first few times. He knows it is Nix. She does this sometimes and moving her is not an option, she’ll find her way back to her own room in a couple hours.

He opens his eyes nonetheless. She is staring at him, eyes glowing violet in the darkness. An amorphous shape in his periphery startles him. A second pair of eyes are inches from his own. He jerks back, freezes, then sighs. Nathan is crouched by the head of his bed. He does not blink.

“What are you doing?” he asks, foolishly.

“Listening,” Nathan answers. “They’re louder in here.”

Nix isn’t breathing. Her expression isn’t visible. This is a relief.

Quan Chi cannot go back to sleep, especially after they leave. Some variation of this happens twice more. One night he hears them enter, hears them moving around the room, but cannot see them. They do not leave until dawn.)

“You will burn if you do not put this on,” Quan Chi informs them on the day. The only thing worse than excited twins, is excited twins with sunburns. He learned this the hard way during their first summer.

Nix eyes it with such disdain she almost seems normal for a moment. “This is only a shell anyway.”

“Yes, but it’s a shell you inhabit,” he answers. Learning to speak as they do is an acquired skill, but invaluable in these moments.

She allows the handmaid to begin applying it with only an eerie, continuous hum in response. Nathan, seeing that his sister has acquiesced, does so as well. Even after two years, the handmaids are no more accustomed to the twins than when they first arrived. Initial comments about their cuteness or sweetness were met with cryptic responses about “The Void” and the servants never recovered.

The beach is clear of any commoners when they arrive. There are guards stationed around the area, shaded tents set with blankets and seats, tables with bowls of fruits and drinks. The twins sprint full force into the other children in greeting (Princess Kitana and Jade accept the full-body tackles with as much grace as they can. Skarlet stands slightly aside with Nitara, only to be given the same treatment) and leave Quan Chi to some peace.

Shang Tsung has claimed a lounging chair in the shade, a cup half-empty of wine in hand already. Quan Chi secures his own and stands aside to supervise his children. They are oddly well adjusted to interacting with others their own age, but that does not preclude them from getting into trouble regardless.

He turns away to refill his cup for one moment, and when he turns back, Nathan is wrestling something in the water. Whatever it is has large teeth and large spines and while the twins are durable, Quan Chi isn’t certain if they can drown but he’d rather not find out. Nix, Skarlet, and Nitara are standing on the shoreline cheering, Jade and Kitana are standing nearby watching.

Nathan is latched onto the creature so tightly that when Quan Chi tries to levitate him out of the water, they both start to rise. He resigns himself to an unwanted swim and hauls his nephew back to shore, sitting him (cackling hysterically as always) in the sand.

He pins Nix with a severe look. “Do not go into the water.”

She grins, immune to his glares, giggling as she says, “The ocean isn’t where I come from.”

“ _ Neither _ of you come from the ocean,” he reminds.

She only continues to smile, in a way that now makes Quan Chi question the truth of his own statement. Nathan finally stands, shaking himself off like a dog, and Jade suggests they build sandcastles.

Quan Chi returns to his cup of wine, drains it, and then retrieves the rest of the mostly-full bottle.

“This is why they act the way they do,” Shang Tsung lectures, “you spoil them.”

“I will teleport you directly into whatever Nathan just had ahold of.”

“I am merely stating what every parental guardian already understands,” he continues, “discipline is required to achieve desirable behavior.”

Quan Chi takes a long drink directly from the bottle. The children are digging a hole. He estimates a fifty-fifty chance that the twins try to bury themselves alive.

“Is that so?” he muses. “Then you’re more than welcome to take them off my hands.”

He doesn’t miss how Shang Tsung pales, even as he curls his lip. “I will not do the work for you.”

No, he’d thought not. 

“If you’re not willing to do it yourself, then don’t offer advice.”

Nathan has animated a battalion of sand-warriors to defend the castle he’s built with Nitara and Skarlet. There are disturbingly realistic sounds of shouting and fighting, but it seems to be contained so Quan Chi does not intervene.

A few meters from them, the hole Nix is digging has deepened exponentially. He’s just getting that foreboding inkling in the back of his mind when she hops out, holding a humanoid skull high in the air.

“Ancient sins, ancient sins!” she chants, with slightly more rhythm than usual. Her music lessons are paying off, at least. “Ancient sins!”

He sighs, sets his wine bottle on a nearby table, and hurries to pluck the skull from her tiny hands. She’s been around plenty of dead bodies— all the children have— but only  _ she _ is stupid enough to put the bones in her mouth and he does not want to see that today.

“Where did you get this?”

She points into the hole. There is, in fact, a skeleton at the bottom. Apart from some scraps of fabric, there is nothing else to indicate who this once was or why they are there. Quan Chi glances down at the skull in his hands, then at his niece who is blinking up at him with rare patience, waiting for his verdict of her find.

“Why don’t you show this to Lord Shang Tsung?” he suggests.

She squeals, snatches it from his hand, and darts off. Ah, yes, he knew they’d be useful one day.

“Behold, I am a god!” Nathan shouts, shuffling sideways in mimic of a crab.

Nitara and Skarlet are apparently trying to smite him and he is thrilled by this. Kitana and Jade exchange glances on the other side of the massive hole.

“Do you think Nix knows where any others are?” Kitana asks.

“Let’s find out,” Jade answers. Quan Chi is about to tell them not to search for any more bodies, but it’s too late.

They follow after Nix, who has just reached Shang Tsung and jumped onto his stomach full force. His wine spills in the sand.

“Hey, that looks like blood,” Quan Chi can just hear her say, “speaking of, look at this!”

“By the gods!” Shang Tsung shouts.

Cake is served after a lunch feast, with the hopes that they won’t be able to eat too much of it with their stomachs full. He is, as always, very wrong. They each eat a piece of ice cream cake about the size of their head (procured from Earthrealm through means and method that Quan Chi will not admit to on pain of torture and death) before they declare themselves satisfied. Nathan, in usual fashion, sprawls in Shang Tsung’s chair and passes out.

Nix and the other children play in the shallows under Quan Chi’s watchful eye, and somehow lure both him and Shang Tsung in. When Nathan discovers this upon waking, he charges into the ocean and nearly gets Nix eaten by yet another mystery creature— not that she minds.

They end the day with a bonfire at sunset. The rest of the children have settled down after such a long day, quietly building in the sand or dozing by their nannies and caretakers. The twins are as idle as they can be while awake, wrestling each other on the blanket Quan Chi claimed. He only separates them when they roll too close to the fire and while they are indeed fireproof, no one else is.

Bodily putting himself between them doesn’t always work, but it does this time because Nix slumps into Quan Chi’s side almost as soon as she’s set down.

“Thank the gods,” Shang Tsung huffs, scowling at Nathan. “She is the mastermind behind all your little schemes. You’ll have no direction without her.”

Nathan stares at him for a moment too long to be comfortable. “You’re a direction.” And, predictably, he tackles a horrified Shang Tsung.

When it’s finally dark and the fire begins to die— and he’s starting to get concerned that Nathan may actually damage Shang Tsung, who is not as durable as his sister— Quan Chi decides it’s time to return to the palace. He scoops up Nix, who hangs over his shoulder more like a dead body than a sleeping child, and hauls Nathan away by the back of his swimming shorts.

They all need baths, sticky with salt water and gritty with sand, but Nix is out cold, Nathan is crashing again, and Quan Chi’s sleepless week is catching up to him. They pass on the couch in a sitting room of their chambers, all piled up together, where Nix and Nathan will wake well into the next morning, energized and a year  ~~ actually two ~~ older.


End file.
